Rocky Road: A Young Lawyer’s Resilience Journey and Pursuit of Career Transformation

I’ve written before about the feelings of imposter syndrome during law school and limbo during the job hunt. Here, I am writing about another period of my career journey. I’m going to tell you about this year. It’s another period that demonstrates how much resilience and how much this legal professional career field takes a mental toll on everyone in the legal field and how it doesn’t stop after law school. Upon some deep reflections after my mother passed and recognizing how short life can be, I realized it was time to make a change in my career path. I am grateful for my past experiences and glad I got to build my litigation experience, but I realized this isn’t where I want to be. After some months, I was ready to start applying for jobs again. However, as mentioned in my previous post on job hunting, it can be tough. I was trying to transition areas of law or explore non-private practice experiences. I got a lot of rejections. I went through a similar period I mentioned before in my previous blog post:

“Social pressures, self-doubt, constant limbo, frantic job hunting are part of the journey. Resilience is key.”

Today, we’re all on LinkedIn and other social media, which can be both a blessing and a curse. While you need to network and look through job posts, you also see everyone around you celebrating their progress in life, whether that’s getting a new job, celebrating a work anniversary, or seeming to do really well in their own business or career. You may feel like there’s something wrong with you or something in your life, and you may feel stuck. You wonder how everyone else is progressing while you are in the same place and don’t like it; as much as you try to push through, you can’t seem to get out of your current position. If you’re job hunting, you’re feeling discouraged and wondering how others around you seem to be getting similar jobs that you want to do but can’t seem to get. But what you have to remember is that generally, you only see the highlights in social media; you won’t see the downs that everyone else is going through, and you won’t see if anyone else feels stuck, whether that’s in a job they don’t like, their firm or business not doing as well as they hoped or their struggles both personally and through their career life. This is also where I remind myself of my previous post on curve balls thrown in life, ” Life threw me a curve, but I still got there. Called.” in that it won’t matter that you didn’t get to where you wanted to go in the linear path you wanted on the timeline you wanted once you got there. When you see someone’s highlight, does anyone really ask them why it took you so long? No, because all that matters then is that the person got there and was admitted as a lawyer, even if they took an extra year to pass the bar exams. We put so much pressure on ourselves, and I understand that we may have family and close people also applying pressure, asking why you’re not as successful in your career yet, why you can’t buy a house yet, etc.

We judge ourselves that way harder than others, seeing everyone else progressing while we feel stuck. This is similar to how, in law school, we think everyone else can keep up and do better than you. You must realize that this doesn’t end just because you’re no longer in law school. If you’re in this legal profession, there are lots of roadblocks. You will inevitably feel stuck or distressed in this profession at some point. You may be crying that you can’t ever get to a point where you feel financially comfortable or get a job that has balance and can pay the bills, as nothing seems to be working out. These feelings all happen while you see or hear about everyone else who seems to get the position, the raises, having weddings, etc.

Now, back this year for myself, I dealt with significant heartbreak (but I won’t get into that too much), not getting booked for work, and feeling like I had lost everything. I was in a dark, negative mental space. I am lucky to have made some really amazing friends in my life who have been supportive and positive for me. One friend in Australia I spoke to called me and said to me that she doesn’t want me to feel like I have nothing going on, and told me how I am still so hot, and smart and the best lawyer she knew and understood how job hunting could be tough as she told me her own stories of actively searching for a legal job for two years and having to give up. She gave me the speech I needed, “No one has all their shit together. Even I still don’t. Even people who have jobs don’t have their shit together…” She’s right, of course, but I didn’t feel it; I felt down and felt like I had nothing going on even though she told me I was such a catch and amazing person and that she believed I deserved the world.

Over time, I started applying to non-law jobs, not just law-adjacent jobs, but non-related jobs. I applied for customer service and retail jobs, taking a page from our previous guest post on “Surviving Unemployment While You Seek Your Dream Job by Faria Ahmed.” I thought, yeah, okay, let’s get a job. I felt my heart ripping apart as I applied to more places.

In a previous Thanksgiving post, I said that I am grateful to have met my LPP firm mates, and one day, I broke down to tell them what was happening. One suggested working with him to gain more corporate experience while I looked for other work. My other LPP firmmates said, “You are very smart and hardworking. Everything will work out,” and “Keep your head up, I believe in you!”

This is a period where I went on a spiritual quest, to say the least, as I was so lost in life that I was trying to figure out my path. I went to a few different churches and then started reading spiritual and self-help books as I felt a little lost in life. However, I started trying to believe in what all my friends were saying, that I was smart and everything would work out. I tried hard to believe in myself to some extent, relax, and enjoy my peace again. I tried to cherish the time I had away from work, believing that work would come, and I went back to only applying to law-related jobs, which I could see myself wanting to try. While doing this, I got more freelance work projects, and then I got a job offer to work for a month with my best friend, who is an ECE who helped me apply to summer jobs with her school board and I took it thinking well at least I can get something this summer. Then, I contacted a senior lawyer I met at a networking event years ago to discuss my career path. It was an amazing conversation, whereby I was told that although they weren’t looking for anyone to join as they had a full house for a small law firm, they would still consider me if I felt it aligned with my career path. From the moment we met years ago, I was told that he knew I had it in me to be a great lawyer and that wherever I go, any organization would be lucky to have me, as I am an asset. I was completely elated and just took this in, thinking, okay, after my summer camp position, I will see if I can somehow make that work, and think about the structure and what I would need again to be a part of his firm.

But then, with this positive energy, after a week, I got a call I wasn’t expecting. I received a call from a place I interviewed a year ago but hadn’t heard back. They wanted me in right away, and although I told them I had already entered a contract to work somewhere for a month for half-day camps, they asked if I could fit them around my schedule. They wanted me full-time as soon as possible, and then they were willing to be flexible around my time for my other job for a month and then would want me full-time again after that. They are even willing to work with me if I get called in for my casual/on-call position for a day and need to take the day away from their office. It’s hard to believe, but I got two consistent jobs for the month of July 2024 and then will continue to work full-time as an in-house legal counsel. This is the first time I’ve worked as in-house lawyer for a company, as I’ve only worked previously as a lawyer at law firms so I am really grateful to have this new experience.

The truth is, I just needed to believe in myself, be kinder to myself, and acknowledge that it’s hard out there. Still, it doesn’t mean that I’m not capable or destined only to be worthy of the environments I was in before or that I wouldn’t be able to get a lawyer job again. I needed to “surrender to nature/universe/God” and not try to control it all with frantic energy and worry, and when I stopped worrying so much and being negative about myself, that is when I attracted jobs. To be in this field, you need resilience. As I’ve said before, resilience is key. You have to push through, keep going, and not allow all the negativity to get to you, as it’s straightforward to get bogged down by negative energy, but it’s not as easy to keep pushing through. I am blessed to be around people I know now who truly have my back when the times get rough, but I know not everyone does, so I will remind you that there will be tough times and you can get through them. This profession will continue to test you. It may cause you or people close to you so much turmoil that you may be unable to balance other parts of your life or see anything. It’s a tough profession for anyone, so have empathy for one another in this profession. I wish everyone the best of luck wherever you are on your journey because it’s difficult.

Let me know in the comments if you relate, or if you are going through a difficult career period trying to not melt down while working (I’ve been here too, where you feel overwhelmed with work, yet at the same time you aren’t in a comfortable financial place or feel you have the ability to hire help, so you just feel stuck while the work never seems to end, and you feel obligated to work harder while underappreciated but there aren’t many other options) or job hunting and feeling stuck or if you have been through it before. As I said, either way, the legal profession is tough, you may have ups, and then you may have long temporary periods of mental stress, that you feel may never end. A lot of non-legal professionals will not understand. Keep going, manifest better by keeping your head positive as hard as it is, and stop comparing yourself and realistically acknowledge it’s tough but you have the power to choose either to give up or find a way to keep going. Being in limbo, feeling stuck, having doubt, it’s all part of the journey and as lawyers we all know it too well but it didn’t end when you graduated law school. Keep going because I’m here for you!